Lately and too often

When was the last time you rushed or went to the airport early only to learn that your flight has been delayed by an hour? Have you ever experienced having your flight delayed or rescheduled twice in one day?

Most people will probably answer: “lately and too often!”

In the old days, the joke was Plane Always Late. But it is no longer funny when the only thing that is “regular” in our airline industry is that flights are “regularly” late, delayed or cancelled.

Industry growth is always good but it should never be at the customer’s expense.

The airline industry in the Philippines has certainly grown in many ways and without a doubt, competition and expansion has encouraged more and more Filipinos to travel around the country and abroad.

Unfortunately there are now more destinations being offered but without the corresponding increase in aircraft.

“Maximization” is the operating word among the airline companies and is done by maximizing aircraft use, turn around time, and the routing of airplanes. That of course would seem normal and highly efficient, but maximization only works when everything works.

When the weather does not cooperate, when the baggage handling goes beyond the normal, or when the aircraft itself manifests problems, the same policy of maximization will guarantee a maximum amount of problems. So when you have more passengers than aircrafts, you are asking for trouble.

The more destinations each aircraft was meant to service in a day, means more destinations being affected, resulting in delays and cancelations at the expense of passengers.

In the last year alone, we’ve noticed that both major airlines and small companies have racked up a regular, and alarming number of delays or flight cancellations due to alleged technical difficulties or delays.

As a solution to the problem, it is now Standard Operating Procedure for a number of airlines to simply tell you that your flight is delayed and is now rescheduled anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours. That of course is subject to change depending on how fast the next plane will be available.

In the case of the small, budget or missionary destinations, the whole flight is cancelled if there are not enough passengers going to where you happen to be.

A well-connected businessman learned about this practice first hand when the airlines he booked, advised them that they would have to stay longer at their resort location because the flight had been cancelled because there were not enough passengers to cover the in-bound expense.

It did not matter to the small airline that the businessman and company were enough to fill the plane going back to Manila, until he called a DOTC official and complained!

If you’re lucky, the airline will give you meal tickets while waiting or bus you to the next nearest airport. But for the most part, all you will ever get is a cold insincere apology for the delay that the ground staff and the pilot will say was caused by someone else except them. They won’t admit that they don’t have sufficient number of aircrafts to match passenger load.

If such events happened to a passenger twice or thrice a year, we could call it collateral costs, but when it happens most of the time, I believe that it is about time that the Civil Aviation authorities or Congress, should start investigating the “regular” delays and cancellations.

While the airline companies do everything to maximize their operations and profit, it is the paying public, their passengers who are bearing the brunt and paying the price in terms of personal inconvenience, lost time and lost “money” since they are not getting what the airlines promise, which is to fly you to your destinations at an agreed time.

Take the case of tourists who are vacationing on a “three day pass”, or foreign businessmen who work on tight schedules in order to “maximize” their short stay in the country, or Filipinos who save up for those tour packages and then end up spending half a day waiting at the airport because of technical delays.

On the surface, we might look at these as an issue of punctuality. However, it is evident that the airlines have sold themselves beyond their carrying or operating capacity. What may be delays today, could eventually become aviation disasters of the future as a result of rushed aircraft servicing, minimized aircraft maintenance costs.

Airline companies should no longer be allowed to get away with abusing Filipino patience and tolerance. They should not be allowed to hide behind some internationally agreed fine print designed to protect industry interests at the public’s expense.

The aviation authorities should publish or make public the list of worst performers in terms of on-time departures or flight cancellations. The Departments of Transport, Tourism and Trade should come together to investigate the bad industry practice and impose stiffer, more expensive fines for delayed flights and cancellations.

Malacañang and the Commission On Audit should also investigate the number of delays or cancellations and check what aviation authorities have done in the past. Have they done their jobs or have they become too familiar with airline officials? Are they being “rotated” just like customs and BID personnel are moved around to avoid familiarization and corruption? Did they collect fines and does the record match and tally?

At the very least, let government collect from the airlines, what they have been earning at our expense!

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